66 LQN FALL 2007

Bruce W. Frier, Henry King Ransom Professor of Law and Frank O. Copley Collegiate Professor of Classics and Roman Law, last spring was named recipient of the University of Michigan’s Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award.

Named in honor of the dean emeritus of the School of Social Work, the award was established in 1996 to recognize faculty whose service contributes to the devel-opment of a culturally and ethnically diverse campus community. The award is made on the basis of a faculty member’s:• Commitment to diversity as an important part of the University’s educational mission • Public and/or academically oriented endeavors that demonstrate intellectual excellence and commitment to cultural diversity in service, teaching, scholarship, and/or creative activity • Efforts to increase diversity within one’s academic unit and/or the University • Efforts to use scholarly and/or creative work to enhance the success of students and faculty of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds • Willingness to serve as a mentor to students • Efforts to bring about equity in our society

Frier is the author of numerous books and articles on economic and social history, focusing especially on Roman law. His publications include Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, The Rise of the Roman Jurists, A Casebook on the Roman Law of Delict, A Casebook on Roman Family Law, and most recently, The Modern Law of Contracts with Law faculty colleague J.J. White, ’62. In addition to his Law School professorship, Frier served in 2001-2002 as the interim chair for the Department of Classical Studies at U-M and holds a joint appointment in that department; he is also a member of both the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Frier received a B.A. from Trinity College and a Ph.D. in classics from Princeton University. He was a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and taught at Bryn Mawr College before joining the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan in 1969. He has taught at the Law School since 1981.

—From The University Record

Bruce Frier receives Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award

Many parents needlessly lose custody of their children because they cannot cope with the intricacies of the child welfare legal system, according to legal experts.

Two of those experts, Michigan Law Clinical Assistant Professors Vivek S. Sankaran, ’01, and Frank E. Vandervort, joined with a Chicago-based expert last summer to conduct Michigan’s first training for attorneys representing parents in child welfare cases.

“There is an emerging consensus, both in the state and throughout the country, that effective representation for parents improves outcomes for children in foster care,” explained Sankaran, a certified Child Welfare Law Specialist who formerly practiced with the Children’s Law Center in Washington, D.C. “Many parents involved in the system are capable of taking care of their children, but once the case gets wrapped up in the legal system, parents become disempowered, information is distorted, and families are separated.”

The training was initiated by the Governor’s Task Force on Children’s Justice, whose membership includes Michigan Law Clinical Professor Donald N. Duquette, ’75, founder and director of the School’s Child Advocacy Law Clinic. “They asked me to plan this training, which was more an interactive workshop than a lecture-based training,” explained Sankaran, who, along with Vandervort, drafted a comprehensive protocol for parents’ attorneys that the task force is considering this fall.

Drawing 50 registrants, the day-long hands-on workshop brought participants face to face with “the strategic decisions faced in a child protective case,” according to Sankaran. “The participants practiced interviewing clients, doing cross examina-tions, and discussed many issues in both small and large groups.”

Vandervort lectured on cross examination skills and the third teacher, Richard Cozzola of the Children’s Law Project of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, discussed how to build relationships with clients.

Co-sponsored by Michigan Law’s Child Advocacy Law Clinic, the training was presented by the State Court Administrative Office, Family Services—Family Welfare Services, and the Governor’s Task Force on Children’s Justice.

Sankaran, Vandervort train counsel for parents